


if you're oprah, i'll be stedman

by folkloricfeel



Category: One Direction
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-24
Updated: 2012-05-24
Packaged: 2017-11-19 19:15:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/576708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/folkloricfeel/pseuds/folkloricfeel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Zayn rides a motorcycle and wears a leather jacket but isn't as much of a badass as he wants you to think he is, Liam wins all the science fairs, Niall <i>really</i> doesn't want anyone eating his enchiladas, and Harry Styles just wants to be the cooliest for his new stepbrother. (Drake & Josh AU, but you don't need to be familiar with that canon to understand this, I don't think? It's just general sitcom-style hijinks, but if you get the references, oh, there are plenty here to be found.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	if you're oprah, i'll be stedman

**Author's Note:**

> That's all right, I can just write 1D AU based off of all of my other fandoms, I didn't need to have a life. Thanks to [](http://lyricsandhearts.livejournal.com/profile)[**lyricsandhearts**](http://lyricsandhearts.livejournal.com/) for being my sounding board for this and giving me some brilliant bits of inspiration, to [](http://lyricalecho.livejournal.com/profile)[**lyricalecho**](http://lyricalecho.livejournal.com/) for the impromptu two-am-Tumblr-fanmail feedback, and to [](http://jannika.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://jannika.livejournal.com/)**jannika** for being herself, of course, and for all of the years of all of staying up too late and building all of the headcanon that laid the groundwork for everything in here. ♥ Title and cut-text lyrics taken from various lyrics off of Matt Bennett's _Warm Fuzzies_ EP.

You see, the root of the issue is that Louis doesn't understand precisely why the hell he needs a stepbrother.

For one, he's already got one of those—well, half-brother, but who's squabbling over the details—and having Zayn suits him just fine, as far as siblings go, thank you. Zayn's close enough to his age to be his friend but far enough outside of his social circle so as not to get on his nerves when they're at school together, and aside from hogging the upstairs bathroom for entirely too long these days in order to get his hair to gelled up just so, he generally stays to his room and draws and listens to music that isn't "Who Let the Dogs Out" or _Grease_ or the Beatles (which is a life choice Louis doesn't understand, but he'll allow Zayn a few concessions of taste here and there) and leaves Louis to his own devices, and overall, it's a good arrangement.

"Stays in his room" being the key operative there.

Unlike Harry Styles, who's currently bounding onto Louis' loft bed, mussing up his quilted comforter and babbling something about how they'll be splendid friends and he's always wanted a brother and won't this be fun, just the two of them in their very own room, staying up every night and going to school together every day and generally doing whatever it is that brothers do?

Harry Styles, the kid who once stuck a pair of olives up his nose in the third grade in a failed magic trick attempt and ended up in the nurse's office for it, is moving into Louis' bedroom and Louis' life and there's not a damn thing he can do about it.

Zayn owes him for this one, is all he can say. Owes him big time.

(And that's before the day Louis comes home to find him hunched over his laptop on the couch they share, wearing a thoughtful expression to go along with the blonde wig and the bright orange dress, even.)

*

They're fifteen when their parents get married, Louis' mom and his dad, which is seven years after Harry falls deeply, madly, recklessly in love with Louis Tomlinson, in retrospect.

He's eight years old and tucking a hall pass from his teacher under his arm to turn the nozzle on the sink, humming the little ditty to himself from today's science lessons, _condensa-a-a-tion, evapora-a-a-ation_ , and thinking idly about how the hot water running over his hands will one day make it back out to sea to continue its journey in the water cycle, when the door to the boys' bathroom opens and Louis and two of his friends bound in, all talking at once and making no actual move for the stalls so much as stealing a few minutes away from class, it would seem. Harry's never actually talked to Louis, even though they've gone to school together since kindergarten; he doubts Louis even knows his name, in all honesty, but it doesn't stop Harry from watching the way that Louis' feet barely touch the ground as he skips over to lean against the windowsill, doesn't stop him from watching the crinkles at the corners of his face when he laughs over that Stan kid's joke about how the lunch lady's unibrow makes her look like a dead ringer for Paul McCartney. Louis is the single coolest person that Harry knows—he's funny and energetic and his hair always looks better than whatever opposing directions Harry's curls decide they're going to stick up in that day—and sometimes Harry likes to watch him from across the playground or back a few places in the lunch line, because maybe if he watches him enough, if he really studies and learns from Louis, he'll understand how to make people like him that effortlessly, too, instead of just being the weird kid with all the perfect attendance trophies.

Louis' head falls on Stan's shoulder in a burst of giggles about whether or not they make her wear the cafeteria hairnet on the Yellow Submarine, and Harry giggles a little too, which makes Louis startle up a little at the sound and meet his eyes in the bathroom mirror.

Louis half-smiles at him, maybe just a remnant of his amusement at Stan's jokes, and Harry feels something warm and happy and wonderful tickle up from the pit of his stomach into his throat, like bubbles of two-percent milk blown through a straw before the first sip from a new carton. Through one of bendy straws, even.

Louis is the bendy straw in his life, and he thinks to himself that it'd be awfully nice to be his friend.

So the very next day, he finds himself a handful of olives in order to set about making it happen.

*

A dress.

A bright orange, big-flowered, knee-length polyester dress.

Harry, his new stepbrother, the kid who stuck olives up his nostrils in a failed gesture of friendship once upon a time, is sitting on the couch in _his room_ , gnawing on a pencil in one hand and plucking away at laptop keys with the other, all the while wearing a bright orange dress.

Well, that's a new development.

Louis puts aside the fact that Harry's legs really don't look half-bad the way they're crossed in front of the coffee table out from the other end of that dress to turn on his heels and _scream his head off because his new stepbrother is wearing a dress_.

Harry sits up in surprise and nearly tosses the laptop over his shoulder on his way to scramble over toward the door and clamp a hand over the words _mom, Zayn, come quick, Harry's in a dress and what the actual fuck is going on_ as they come tumbling out of his mouth, and when he's sufficiently muffled them with his palm, Louis lets his tongue dart out to lick it, because even if it's possibly the worst response imaginable to finding your new stepbrother sitting in your room wearing a dress, it feels a little something like control of the situation and, hey, now he can say things can't get any weirder from here on out, right?

Until Harry whispers, the hand still over his mouth, "relax, it's… it's okay, it's just for the school newspaper."

Louis has to double over in laughter and clutch at his belly when he puts two and two together, reading over the piece of paper that Harry shoves at him, blushing, that says _dear Miss Nancy, how do I let the boy in my fifth period algebra class know I think he's cute?_ and _dear Forever Solving For X, if I liked someone, I would take the time to get to know them, because it's easier to talk to a friend than a stranger_ , because his new stepbrother is the _school's advice columnist_ and this is just too, too good to be true.

He stops laughing for long enough to notice that Harry's chewing on his lip, looking like he might wither into their carpet at any moment, and Louis puts a hand on his shoulder because maybe the kid could be more fun than he gave him credit for.

"The dress helps me get in the mood, I suppose," Harry says, shuffling his feet in a way that screams _you hate me now, don't you_ , so Louis slides a hand down to one of his bra-padded breasts and gives him a cheeky squeeze, because he's decided he can like Harry, after all. "To give advice, that is."

"That's quite convenient, because it gets me in the mood too, babe," Louis says with a wink, and Harry blushes in a whole new way when he gives him an over-the-top bat of the eyelashes to go along with it.

Zayn chooses that moment to poke his head into their room, leaning an elbow on the door frame. "Y'got any lead, Lou?" he asks, pointing a mechanical pencil in Louis' direction and giving Harry-in-a-dress a once-over like _well,_ that's _a thing_. "I'm out."

"Don't have a fucking clue if I do or not," Louis says blithely, not bothering to remove his fingers from Harry's fake breast, and with a shrug, Zayn turns and heads back to his room.

*

"Now that I've decided we're friends," Louis tells him that night, flopping down on the couch beside him and putting an arm around the back of his shoulder as the reality television announcer reveals tonight's elimination results, "we ought to have a handshake, don't you think we ought to have one, Hazza?"

"Don't you mean, now that we're brothers?" Harry asks, furrowing his brow in confusion and trying in spite of himself not to lean into the crook of Louis' elbow. Louis' own brow furrows, because _brothers_ apparently sounds as silly as _friends_ to him when he says it out loud, too.

"I mean," Louis says, nuzzling up on Harry's shoulder, "now that I've got a Harry for myself, just how am I going to let the world know that we've got our own secret little handshake and they can go flip off because I get to know what it's for and they don't?"

So when they shake on the proposition, Harry supposes he's got himself a Louis, too, and he's more than okay with that.

*

Harry and Louis sure seem to hit it off quick, Zayn notices from his room across the hall.

It's like, one day they're icing each other out at the dinner table and Louis is flopping himself overdramatically onto Zayn's bed and fussing and groaning about having to share his television set with someone who doesn't understand the supreme importance of _One Tree Hill_ and _Skins_ , and the next they're inseparable as you get, yeah? They're mixing their Mountain Dew and Coca Cola and fixing up Stan's dune buggy and currently their voices are fighting loudly over Mario Kart from behind their door in a way that doesn't sound like fighting at all, and Zayn thinks it's good for Louis, that he gets a brother his own age this time around. He's happy for him, that he gets to enjoy it all, instead of getting stuck with a little kid he has to strum the chords of "Wonderwall" and hum to until he falls asleep again when he wakes up crying because his dad's gone and not coming back anytime soon. Not that Louis had ever minded the excuse to sing, but Harry makes his brother smile, and that makes Zayn smile, too, even if he'd never give Louis the satisfaction of seeing it.

"Oh no no no you don't, Styles," Louis' voice echoes all the way through his own closed door and into Zayn's, "I will chase your ass down, and I will come out ahead of you to that finish line, and victory shall be mine, I tell you, all mine!" There's an _oomph_ that sounds suspiciously unlike any sort of electronic racetrack collision he's ever heard, and then the sound of Harry's laughter and something that sounds suspiciously like overexaggerated kissy noises, and Zayn chuckles to himself as he sketches the diamonds into his Power Ranger's suit on the corner of the page he should be using for his math homework.

Harry and Louis sure seem to have hit it off quick, and Zayn's happy for him, even if he can't imagine what that kind of friendship feels like for himself.

*

Harry gets a job at the movie theater a few months after he gets his stepbrothers, and it goes something like this: Louis has convinced him that they _need_ to see this terrible horror flick spoof he's read about and he _must_ have some popcorn in the next hour or he might _die_ and he will _not_ stand for microwave popping instead of the oily movie-theater pump stuff that stains your fingers yellow, and so when they walk through the entryway of the Premiere, Louis gives his stomach a pat and flounces over to the concessions stand just in time for a blond kid to toss a red vest over his shoulder at Harry and ask, "you want a job, man? Fuck me, I'm starving, I could go for some Sbarro right now, so the vest is all yours for the taking."

(Niall, as it turns out, quits almost every day—usually timed like clockwork when it gets too close to lunchtime for the liking of his stomach to continue mopping up the mess in Theater Three—but even when he comes back for his vest an hour later, belching up the smell of oregano and marinara and spicy sausage, Harry's made himself invaluable to the manager rearranging the candy display for better aesthetic appeal, so he stays on board at the Premiere.

Louis could use a new hangout, anyway, so it all works out splendidly, if you ask him.)

*

And there are bets over junk food and video games and there are schemes to sneak out to concerts and there are glasses of Dew half-and-halfed with Coke and Zayn thinks, he's happy for Louis, that someone makes him smile in a way that's more real than he's ever seen his brother smile, and so he sketches the smiling eyes of Casper the Friendly Ghost into the corner of what should be his book report as the sounds of racing carts and Midi-pixelated soundtracks drift through the crack between his carpet and the bottom of his door.

*

"Niall, _darling_ ," Louis drawls, throwing one hand around the boy's shoulder and pinching his cheek with the other, "how's about you and Danielle spend your breaktime playing a little pool against me and Harry here? Harry doesn't know how to play pool very well at all, you see, so if you wanted, we could swindle him out of a little money here, you and me, what do you say?"

"Cool story, bro," Niall says through a mouthful of soft pretzel, patting him on the cheek in response and placing the stray arm back at Louis' side, "but I know better by now than to trust the two of you, 'specially when you've got that look in your eye. Besides, not like I didn't see you collect that fifty from the old guy earlier." He waves over to Harry, who's doing his best to look clueless as he clearly assesses and lines up the angles of the pool table in the arcade corner with his cue. "Hey, want to put up these flyers for me? Paul wants them on all the bulletin boards by end of the night, and I've got to get me a refill here, so."

"Can't you do that yourself, Nialler?" Harry asks, sticking his tongue out at him and swishing the cue back and forth in practice strokes over the felt. "I mean, don't you have to pass, like, five mall bulletin boards on the way to the slushie stand?" Niall just shrugs and sits the stack of flyers smack in the middle of the trajectory of Harry's imaginary shot before turning to head out into the mall.

Louis plucks one of the flyers off the stack and reads, _Premiere Theaters Annual Talent Show, all interested applicants must submit a one-minute audition tape_ , and a slow grin spreads over his face when he shoves the paper in Harry's face and says, "we're doing this, Hazza, you and me, right? Let's do Blues Brothers, you know that one, and you make a poor Sandy, anyway, what with how you simply refuse to learn the words to 'We Go Together' well enough for my liking."

"Whatever you say, Lou," Harry responds, still idling with the pool cue, but Louis sees the smile at the corners of his eyes even before it gets to his mouth. They're doing this, oh yes, they are.

*

Harry looks like he could cry or throw up when they get to the performance night, though, and Louis flips off his sunglasses and pulls him in tight for a hug while the girl ahead of them wails into the microphone half a note too sharp for her recording.

"Listen," Louis tells him, leaning their foreheads together so that their matching fedoras knock a little off kilter in the process, "you're going to kill it out there, positively slaughter it, I know you are, we've done this a hundred times in our room—and besides, you're Harry Styles, everyone loves you, don't they?"

"Pretty sure that's just you, Lou," Harry says, rolling his eyes, but it's enough to get him to smile a little through the vomity look, which was the goal, really. He reaches down to lace his fingers with Louis', and oh, Louis' own stomach does a little rolling and churning when Harry squeezes their palms together tight, which is new. It's. He's not sure what to make of that.

They do kill it, and Harry's voice doesn't even crack on the high notes the way it does at one in the morning sometimes, and when some random girl runs up on stage and kisses the both of them and tells them she's loved them all the way since ninth grade biology, Louis doesn't think tracking her down with a Post-It after the show containing his phone number will harm anything, in the long run.

*

Zayn watches him pass that Post-It from his seat in the audience and thinks, _what're you doing, even_ , but the thought quickly passes when he senses someone's eyes on him from down the row. The kid sitting next to that girl who works with Louis, the girl with the curly hair he always recognizes in the color guard at pep rallies, is studying him with some kind of expression he doesn't know how to read.

Zayn gives a little wave, because he doesn't know what else to do, and it's like the guy was never looking at him, as fast as he darts his attention back to the program, which just makes Zayn feel kind of stupid, so he sits on his hands and takes a great interest in what Paul has to say about the next act.

He thinks he catches the guy looking over at him a few more times before the end of the night, but it's probably his imagination or the spotlights playing tricks on him, one or the other.

*

His brothers are the talk of school the next day.

It's not unexpected, Zayn thinks, because they're good, Louis' always been good and having Harry brings him out from behind his guitar, brings him off of his loft bed mumbling Kings of Leon choruses and into the spotlight he loves, but the range of reactions, that's a little more unexpected, listening to the rumblings of his history classmates from the perspective of a grade below. _Harry's just so dreamy_ , the girl in front of him breathes out, _wonder if he's looking for a girlfriend, and those_ curls, _who knew he could_ sing _like that_ ; he's pretty sure she's the same girl who rolled her eyes and went back to her bubblegum when Harry asked her to the school dance a few months ago, and last time he checked, Harry's still the same weirdo who stares in awe of the magical laundry elves when he gets home from school and there's folded clothes in a hamper on the middle of his bed or flops around the living room like a flounder when he thinks no one's watching, earbuds blocking out the accompaniment to the half-whispered Bowling for Soup or Cher Lloyd lyrics on his lips. Two rows over, the boy in the polo is asking his friend if he thinks the two of them'll sing at his brother's college party; the pretty kid in the front row is preening, of course, and telling some girl that Louis Tomlinson stole the haircut Zayn definitely remembers he wasn't sporting yesterday. Zayn shakes his head and gives Cartman a speech bubble to shout as Kenny's decapitated one rolls away into the margins of his notes on the French Revolution, because apparently the entire ninth grade has figured out his brothers are the coolest kids around, even if they skimmed over the part where they're the biggest dorks he's ever met.

 _Almost_ the entire ninth grade, anyway.

The heat in his veins spikes when the jocks in the back row whisper something about _Twinklepuff Tomlinson_ , the temperature spikes too hot and the boil runs too deep in his blood when their teacher hushes up a raucous bout of laughter about _and his little princess Fairy Styles, too_ with a stern look to the back of the room.

No one gets away with talking about his brothers like that. Not on Zayn's watch.

He's got half a mind to stand up and punch Steinberg in his stupid mug then and there in class, yeah, but instead, he reaches into his closet when he gets home, pushes aside the graphic tees and hoodies on their hangers, shuffling until he finds the leather jacket Great Aunt Catherine got him for Christmas two years ago.

When he sticks his arms in the sleeves and lets the shoulders drape down over his white tee, putting his best scowl onto the face of his reflection in the closet door mirror, he almost looks intimidating, some kind of force to be reckoned with wrapped up in a hundred and ten pounds of gangly high school freshman elbows and knees, and looks at the image he sees and thinks to himself, _I can work with that, yeah_.

*

Louis waltzes into the kitchen one afternoon the following week when Harry is sautéing asparagus for dinner and Harry recognizes That Look in his eye somewhere on his way to the refrigerator.

"So, Harold," Louis says, plucking the half-full half-gallon milk carton from the shelf, "what would you say to a friendly little bet among stepbrothers to liven up the week?"

"I don't like where this is headed," Harry fronts.

"What say you," Louis proposes, coming over to lean his chin on Harry's neck in order, Harry assumes, to inspect whatever it is he'll be eating in an hour or so, "that I issue a challenge: whoever scores the most dates by the end of school on Friday gets to sleep in the other's bed for a week?"

"You know I always get up in the middle of the night for water," Harry says; Louis crinkles his nose and frowns at the splattering pops of olive oil and seasoning in the saucepan. "How is it a fair prize to ask me to injure myself coming down from your loft bed?"

"It's a fair prize because I'll win," Louis winks, picking up a fork to poke at the tray of thawing salmon. "And your comforter is cozier than mine."

"Whatever you say, Lou," Harry pats him on the shoulder as he removes the salmon-injuring weapon of choice from Louis' hands.

"Good, then, it's a bet, and I'll look forward to being the cuddle buddy under your sheets come Saturday," Louis decrees, taking a swig of milk out of the carton as he heads out of the kitchen. He turns in the doorway as Harry adds a dash of basil. "Although, if you really wanted to give me a run for my money, you could wear that _purdy_ apron when you talk to your girls, you know."

Harry just shakes his head and turns a burner on for the salmon when Louis takes the milk carton with him on his way back up to their room.

*

Liam Payne enters their lives like so: Harry gets paired with the smarmy, smug, terrible bastard for a research project for trigonometry and immediately whines, wheedles, and cries for Louis' help to convince their teacher he's moving to Venezuela to complete his process of transition to become a woman and cannot possibly arrange Skype dates to work with a project partner.

Actually, he enters their lives before that: Harry loses the science fair for the second year in a row that spring, and Harry is convinced that That Look Liam shoots him when the results are announced is akin to a gloating proclamation of _see, I am in fact better than you at All Of The Things and I will be sure to torment you in respect to it until your graduating day and, possibly if I'm feeling particularly friendly with the concept of schadenfraude, will hunt down your favorite pillow and tear it hem from hem and use its contents to tar and feather whatever remnants are left of your scholastic reputation_.

(When they become best friends in the span of two weeks' time after bonding over cosecants and cosine functions, Liam will protest through his laughter that he shot no such look, he wasn't even looking in Harry's direction, and Louis will attempt to tweak his nipple in retaliation for the look that most certainly did happen as he reaches over to grab a handful of the popcorn that has errantly half-scattered all over Harry's lap in the scuffle, and Zayn will only catch bits and pieces of the conversation through his earbuds as he ventures downstairs for a soda, but he'll be certain this time that Liam was, in fact, watching him this time around.)

*

And there are Academic Bowls and days-long spats over foam fingers and sheep snuck in and out of the garage at one in the morning, and Zayn pulls the edges of his leather jacket sleeves over the bracelets on his wrist and the doodles on his palms when he passes the football team in the hallway between second and third period and thinks, he's happy for Louis, he is, even if there are times he wishes his brother would be just a little quieter about all that happiness, for everyone's sake.

*

" _What_ are you _doing_?" Harry splutters, walking back into the kitchen from upstairs with Liam in tow to find Louis with a spoon hovering halfway between his lips and the casserole dish in the middle of the outstretched oven rack.

"Nothing," Louis says around a mouthful of brownie soup, a little bit of chocolate batter dribbling down the side of his mouth, "absolutely nothing for you to worry your head about, Haz. Liam, baby, how've you been?"

"You can't just eat all the brownie batter before it cooks!" Harry exclaims, diving for the spoon, but Louis spins on his heels away from him just in time.

"That's unsanitary," Liam agrees, making a face.

"You're just jealous that I'm licking Harry's spoon and you don't get to," Louis shoots back at him with a wink.

"Come on," Harry says, "put that back, Liam's never had my fudgie boos before and I want them to turn out right." He lurches at Louis from what should be a surprise angle, the old fingertap-to-one-shoulder-and-arm-around-the-other trick, but Louis' reflexes are too quick and before anyone can stop him, the spoon makes a landing smack into Liam's mouth.

Liam's cheeks go red and his hands start flailing and fanning at his mouth vehemently as his eyes dart from Harry to Louis and back again.

"See? There was no need to worry," Louis says, clapping Liam on the back, "I told you he'd love them, fully baked or not."

The spoon goes flying out of Liam's mouth and doesn't stop until it hits the sink.

*

Liam approaches him two days later at his locker, which is a surprise, to say the least.

"Hey," he says, and Zayn almost looks over his shoulder to see who Liam's talking to, because he didn't even know Liam knew he went to their school too.

"Hi?" Zayn answers, grabbing for his algebra textbook.

"I know this is weird, but I've got a proposition for you," Liam says, leaning against the locker bay. "There was, well, an incident the other day when I was at your house—brownies and spoons and, it's a long story, my weird phobias—"

"I saw," Zayn says, because he usually does.

"—and it all wouldn't be so bad if your brothers would stop teasing me about it for half a minute, but since they won't, I feel like a little revenge is in order." A more wicked grin than Zayn realized this kid was capable of plays over the corners of his mouth. "And I was thinking that's where you come into play."

"I can do revenge," Zayn says, grinning a little too, because the rules of his protectiveness only go so far as to state that no one's allowed to be mean to his brothers but him.

"Good," Liam claps his hands together, "because if I take the daytime shift and you man the home front, I'm pretty sure we can torment them twenty-four-seven to get back for this."

"Keep talking, yeah," Zayn says, rummaging through his locker for his composition book.

"I was thinking, how difficult do you think it would be to sneak into their room at night without waking anyone?" Zayn's interest piques, but just then Liam's thought gets derailed and he waves at something over Zayn's shoulder. "Sorry, Danielle's waiting, we've got to get to class, but text me later and we'll work out the details?" He grabs Zayn's composition book and scribbles a number over the only empty corner of the page, handing it back to him.

"Sounds good," Zayn says, shrugging casually but liking the idea of this.

"By the way, nice choice of drawing there," Liam says, nudging the book back at him, "but Woody's better than Buzz, any day."

*

That night, as Harry's drooling into his pillow, Zayn carefully shaves the letter _L_ into his leg hair, _O_ , and thinks, he'd fight Liam any day on that, _U_ , and maybe he wouldn't mind having the chance.

*

It turns out, they find out a few months later, that not only did someone upload a video of their talent show performance to Youtube, but the same mystery benefactor has, apparently, given the email in Harry's inbox, passed their rendition of "Gimme Some Lovin'" on to the talent scouts for some win-a-chance-to-perform-on-Total-Request-Live contest.

Which is how Harry and Louis find themselves on a plane to Los Angeles in the middle of August, nervous and giddy and bumping elbows across the seat console and ready to make sure the Golden State doesn't know what in the world just hit it.

*

"Hey," Liam's voice says, loud enough to startle Zayn out of his iPod revelry and sit straight up on the bed.

"Haz and Lou aren't here, you know," Zayn says, frowning. "You missed them by about a mile up in the sky."

"I know," Liam says, "I've got summer reading to finish up and Harry told me I could come by and borrow his copy of Gatsby." He takes a step into Zayn's bedroom. "What're you up to there?"

"Nothing much," Zayn says, shrugging and moving quick to shut his laptop, "just, wasting the end of summer here online, yeah?"

"No, wait," Liam shakes his head, and moves toward Zayn's bed like he's suddenly found out what his feet are useful for, "that looked pretty cool, did you draw that?" He points to the wedge of light still shining from the laptop screen, and Zayn opens it back up, in spite of himself.

"I wish," he says, clicking the back button on his browser as Liam sits on the bed beside him, "I'm not that good, wish I was." He stares at the DeviantArt user page and contemplates the really stupid thing he's about to do right now, then goes and does it anyway. "I did draw this, though."

Liam angles the laptop toward himself, and Zayn figures whipping his passport out to internet dorkville probably served as a boarding pass on the train to alienation from his brother's friends yet again, so he's surprised when Liam says, "wow. Wow," in a way that actually doesn't seem to indicate horror or derision. "You're really good at this," he says. "Even better than I thought."

"Thanks?" Zayn offers, fiddling with his pillowcase.

"I don't even know who these characters are, but I'd reblog you, if you could reblog from Deviant, anyway," Liam says, smiling sheepishly like the admission is some kind of extended hand. He clears his throat after a moment, "right, that book, I'll just," and as he motions both index fingers toward the door and starts to walk back out it, Zayn thinks, he'd shake on that.

*

Harry's a mess by midnight—there's only so long the excitement of being miles away from your parents and gorging yourself on hotel food charged to their credit cards will ward off the impending doom of stage fright when you're about to film a segment in the morning that might get them voted onto TRL—so Louis crawls under the stiffened sheets and pulls the starchy comforter up over their heads, grabbing for his hand.

"Listen," he says, "didn't I tell you last time that people were going to love you?" Harry bites his lip in the semi-darkness of the blanket cavern and nods. "We've got this, right?" It's true; they picked "All You Need Is Love" to perform because Harry's been singing along to _Yellow Submarine_ since he was five, and Louis thinks he sounds flipping brilliant on the high notes, if you ask his opinion on the matter.

"Yeah," Harry says, positively gnawing at his lip now, "but that doesn't make me less nervous."

"Me either, I suppose," Louis says, because his stomach has been feeling funny all night, but that could just be from all the pizza and sparkling grape juice gurgling around in it. "But I'll be up there with you, and if you get too scared, I'll just pinch you on the bum and make you forget all about your worries, all right?"

"You can't do that on national television," Harry laughs, even if his voice is still tense.

"Well, we won't be on national television," Louis says, "not until we get picked, anyway, so I can do whatever the hell I please for right now, yes?"

"You're intolerable sometimes," Harry says, throwing the blankets off of them to tuck underneath his arm and rolling over onto his side.

Louis drifts awake sometime after the sun comes up and realizes he's tucked into Harry's side, arm tight around his torso and fingers a knotted mess with each other's, and his own stage fright hits him all at once, so since their alarm has to be minutes from going off, he tucks the covers around Harry and sneaks off to the bathroom to shower away his worries.

*

"Ready to do this?" Harry asks, sucking in a breath when the production assistant motions for them to come up to the stools on the stage backdrop where they'll be filming.

"Of course I am," Louis says, beaming at him, "make me proud, Hazza?"

*

There's a _Welcome Home TRL Stars_ banner up in the breakroom when Harry gets back to work on Tuesday afternoon, and Danielle pats him on the back and asks, "how did it go, babe?"

Harry shrugs. "Pretty well, I suppose," he says, "although we won't hear anything for a while, I don't think." He looks over at Louis, who's got his feet propped up on a lobby table a few feet away from him, and Louis smiles back at him. "It was a good trip, though. Really good."

"You're just saying that 'cause you and your boyfriend got to mack on each other away from mommy and daddy," Niall says, making kissy sounds at him around a mouthful of Jujubees, and Harry rolls his eyes at him and smacks him hard on the shoulder. "Now, like I was saying, precisely how does Dora expect me to know where to go on her map? Do I look like an explorer? Fuck me, do I really look like I know these things, Peazer?"

Harry can't help but hum a little as he scrubs popcorn grease off the concessions counter, even if the notes of his tune creep a little toward flat as he watches Louis chatting up some pretty blonde in the line for the five-twenty in Theater Four.

*

On Zayn's sixteenth birthday, he walks down to the DMV and waits in line for forty-five minutes and when the lady behind the counter asks him if he's here to schedule a driving test, he asks her for a form to fill out for a Class M learner's permit instead.

It takes him six months and three weeks to save up the money, from odd jobs and relatives' gifts and the occasional DA commission, but by winter he's handing over his savings to a kid in senior class for an absolute junker of a motorcycle that's no one's but his.

*

His mom is out at some fancy banquet for Harry's dad's work, so when Louis says _Zaynie, you won't tell Mom if we use these, right?_ and flashes a pair of fake IDs at him— _y'really think you'll fool anyone with the names Jefferson Steelflex and Alvin Yakatori?_ gets him a fluff of the hair and a, _why, I was banking more on fooling them with my god-given looks and boyish charm, thanks for asking_ —he figures he's got the house to himself for the night.

Which doesn't mean he has to _be in_ the house all that time, does it.

So he waits to hear Louis' El Camino pull out of the driveway, slips on his jacket, grabbing his motorcycle keys off the nightstand and shoving them into his pocket beside a few broken bits of charcoal crayons, and heads out into the late evening light.

He drives around for a while just to feel the wind on his face and the buzz through the soles of his shoes against the pedals, drives around the neighborhood before eventually ending up at the elementary school playground, which is deserted now that the sun's down behind the trees. The place hasn't changed much since he played out here on recess; there's a new jungle gym with links in colors he wouldn't have put together, but the gravel's still good for kicking under your heels and the tire swing's still as beat-up and enticing as it always was. His dad used to bring him and Louis here sometimes on weekends and spin him till he got sick on that thing, before. He pulls out his phone to check his messages—one from Louis, proclaiming in less-than-sober spelling how fucking fantastic the opening act is, and three from Liam, shooting off some random thoughts on the Friends marathon on Nick at Nite—and responds to both before shutting his phone off and sitting down in the middle of the hopscotch grid on the blacktop. It's getting cold out, so he shoves his hands into his pockets, which is when he rediscovers the charcoals, so he picks out the lightest one and hunches himself over the concrete, flicking his tip out to the edge of the crayon as he thinks of something playground-appropriate to get him started.

Ten minutes later, there's a fat little man with a mustache, legs sprawled out up in the air over the handlebars of a unicycle, and Zayn thinks, some kid is gonna see this come Monday morning, if it doesn't rain and wash it away, some seven-year-old is gonna be tossing hopscotch and wonder where that little fat man rode from to get to their recess, yeah.

It's like, he knows people see his stuff sometimes on DA and the occasional fansite, but this feels more—real? important?—the way he can reach out and smudge his thumb to give the little guy a trail of gray behind him, the way he can stand up and hover over it, hands in his pockets, and watch a chipmunk dart over the blacktop like he's racing the unicycler, and that's cool in a way that notebook doodles aren't.

And he looks around at the rust-colored sky and the drawing he's leaving here and thinks, I've got a motorcycle, yeah, I ought to put it to some use from now on.

*

He drives back home and drives back to the world of model rocket mishaps and wars over lucky shirts and that one time Louis accidentally sent a mail-order bride to their front doorbell, and the next day his brothers are bickering over whether or not they can get away with running a bed and breakfast out of the guest room without their parents noticing, but for once he barely notices because he's thinking of the bricks of the schoolyard wall and whether he can fit a paintbrush into the pocket of his leather jacket this time around.

*

It's like this: Louis just _might_ be failing the eleventh grade.

Possibly because he's forgotten to show up for gym class once or twice.

Or seventeen times.

It's a rather pathetic way to be failing your junior year, if you ask him; the thing could be terribly more romantic, some sob story about how he's dyslexic and won't do his math homework because of the way he cries himself to sleep at night in shame or how he's rebelling because the sudden intrusion of a male parental figure is bubbling up deep-seated daddy issues that manifest themselves in D-minus English essays, but he doesn't even remember his biological father to have issues with him and he can read numbers just fine, thanks. No, in all honesty, he simply doesn't like gym shorts and there's a taco stand around the corner from their school and the allure of shredded lettuce and mystery seasonings is so much often so much greater than the allure of chin-ups and dodgeball, really.

That's all there is to it, but it doesn't change the fact that his gym teacher is threatening to appeal to the vice principal hold him back a grade if he doesn't find a way to rack up some extra credit in the last half of the semester here.

Which is an unfair thing to ask of anyone, for the love of tacos, but he's Louis Tomlinson and luck falls into his lap, so he's sure it will all find a way to resolve itself, and if it doesn't, he'll already know the answers to exams for the next year, so that just leaves more time for Mario Kart tournaments and whatever other mischief he and Haz'll get up to.

As it turns out, he doesn't even have to wait for his resolution more than a week, when Danielle brings up a very intriguing piece of information Wednesday evening when he's waiting for Harry's shift to finish up.

"You ought to try out too, Harry," Danielle says, unplugging the vacuum cleaner and winding the cord back around the handle, "they're looking for anyone sixteen to twenty-five, all they want is an audition tape, and I've seen your moves, stud."

"I do do a fine sprinkler, don't I," Harry muses, grinning and leaning on the counter above the Milk-Duds, "although, the shopping cart's always been my most graceful bit, if I do say so myself."

"Exactly," Danielle laughs, brushing a wayward patch of curls back out of his face as she walks past. "Although it's not like you need the extra credit, between you and Liam you've got enough to rival the rest of the student body put together, I swear."

Louis' ears perk up at that. "Extra credit, you don't say?"

"Yeah," Danielle nods, "Channel Five's partnering with some Fitness For Youth organization, I think? The winners get a semester's worth of gym credit to go along with the other prizes."

Louis' just about to open his mouth to inquire further when Niall comes storming out from the direction of the break room, looking for all the world like there's actual smoke about to start blowing out of his ears at any moment.

"What's up, Nialler?" Louis calls to him; he gets a death glare in return. "You all right there, love?"

Niall's death glare shifts to align with Harry.

"You ate."

Harry gulps so hard it's visible from across the room.

"My enchilada."

"I can explain," he starts, backing up and clutching the hot dog machine for protection, and it's all Louis can do to hold back the peals of laughter that are already tickling the insides of his ribcage.

"You. Ate. My. Enchilada."

"It was a simple mistake?" Danielle shoots Louis a glance, and the eye contact only makes it worse for both of them, amusement spluttering in spurts through their pursed lips. "You didn't label it on the bag, and I didn't see it on the Tupperware until I'd already taken three or four bites, and then I figured it was too late to—"

"Harold Styles," Niall hisses, " _you are a dead man_ ," and Harry gets about a two-second headstart before Niall breaks out into a war cry and chases him all the way out of the Premiere and into the mall, shouting his innocence in response to Niall's accusations all the way until they're too far to be heard over the sound of Louis and Danielle's hysterics.

*

And two weeks later, that's how Louis ends up with a rose clenched between his teeth as he tangoes across the starlit backdrop, making Night at the Roxbury head bobs while lassoing Harry in toward him and launching himself into Harry's arms, legs wrapped tight around his waist and head buried into his shoulder after a kiss right smack to the cheek, when Channel Five's weatherman announces the victors at the end of the night.

*

"But, I already told you," Harry whines a little whine that sounds like the high-pitched squealing of a lonely puppy, "I'm _afraid_ of rollercoasters, Lou, there's no way you're getting me on the Demonator."

"I am, if it's the last thing I do," Louis says, tossing the remote across the living room to the chair Zayn's sitting on; Zayn goes for a catch but misses, and it ricochets off the pillows and knocks a coaster off the end table instead. "I am if I throw you over my shoulder and carry you, if that's what it takes."

"Come on," Harry whimpers, "you know I don't like all those hills and dips and twists. My stomach can't handle that."

"Harry, don't be a child," Louis says, sounding for all the world like the child himself at the moment. "You and I are going to be the first ones to ride the Demonator at the grand opening tonight, and that's that. Now, shall we practice one more time, or shall we head out to stake our place in line?"

"Fine," Harry grumbles, "one more practice. I'm not ready for this yet." He and Louis strap themselves in on the couch, and break into yet another ridiculous bout of rollercoaster choreography where Harry sure looks like he's having more fun than he lets on. Between the television and all the whirring and clicking and wheezing racket the two of them are making, Zayn almost doesn't catch his phone chiming, but he does feel the vibrate pick up in his pocket after a second.

_dani n i called it quits can i come over 2 your place tonight to crash?_

Zayn heads up to his room, leaving his brothers to their amusement park fantasy devices, and holds his breath as he texts back _sure, ive got movies, can grab something to eat, you want me to order pizza?_ on his journey up the stairs.

Liam arrives twenty minutes later, after Harry and Louis have already headed out to the Demonator, which is probably for the best, all things considered; Zayn's not sure when it started making sense that he'd be the one Liam would text in a situation like this instead of his brothers, but he figures Louis probably wouldn't like that, if he knew about it.

"Hi," Liam says, hair rumpled and face a little splotchy, leaning against the door frame, and Zayn should like, hug him, or give some bullshitted advice and tell him there are plenty of girls at school and he'll bounce back like he thinks you're supposed to say right now, or something, but all that comes out is, "you want me to order that pizza?"

"Sure," he answers, smiling a little in one corner of his mouth, "stuffed crust with extra cheese, right?"

Zayn nods. "Only kind worth having, yeah." He motions for Liam to come out of the doorway, and Liam just sort of collapses on the bed in an exhausted heap and props a pillow up against the wall. Zayn shuffles through the shelf of DVDs and produces a few in each hand. "I've got Anchorman, Goonies, or 'course there's always the holy trilogy," he tosses the Toy Story box set toward the bed at Liam, "probably a good night for that, yeah."

"What about that anime you like?" Liam asks, which definitely isn't what Zayn was expecting to hear. "The one you draw, remember, you showed me a while back, we could marathon that?" He looks embarrassed at his words, and it strikes Zayn that that's kind of cute, that thing he does when he gets that way where he bites his thumbnail. "I mean, if you wanted. You could introduce me to the wide world of anime, I guess."

"You sure you want that?" Zayn scrunches his face up, flopping onto the bed beside him to pull up the pizza delivery number. "This stuff's not exactly infinity and beyond, well."

"If you like it, I trust your tastes," Liam proclaims, and Zayn concerns himself with Pizza Hut digits because now definitely isn't the time to be thinking those adjectives again.

An hour later, they've thoroughly gorged themselves on stuffed crust and made it through three episodes, chatting about the characters and pausing occasionally for Zayn to explain things when Liam's mouth does that knotty thing but mostly just sharing each other's space, when Liam says, "it wasn't. I don't want you to think—it was mutual, it wasn't like that."

"That's good," Zayn says, "I mean, if it had to happen, that's a good way."

"It wasn't—I've known it was coming," Liam says, taking a deep breath, "for a while now. We both did. I think we were both just waiting for a while for the other to say something, you know?"

"Yeah," Zayn nods, like this is something he's got any experience with himself.

"It doesn't—that's not why it's hard," Liam says, and Zayn's pretty sure he's following, even if he's not following at all. "We're going to wake up tomorrow and be really great friends, I know it, you know? We even laughed about it after we said it."

"That's really good," Zayn says, and it's like he's watching Liam's forehead try to twist itself up into a headache, and he just wants to tell him to relax, just a little every now and then.

"That's not why it's hard," Liam reiterates, and Zayn doesn't want to make any assumptions, so he just nods and says, "more episodes'll make you feel better, this next one's my favorite, I think."

Zayn must doze off for a bit somewhere around episode six or eight, because the next thing he knows, Harry and Louis' voices are shouting through his dream-haze, and he startles to find his brothers collapsed on top of each other in his door frame, hair standing straight up on end and, is that the downstairs curtain around Harry's waist? He nudges Liam, who only sort of shakes his head and sinks into his shoulder more, and rubs his eyes.

"Whoo, boy, Zaynie, was that ever a ride," Louis says, Harry doubled over at his side in suppressed giggles.

"I don't want to know what all this is about," Zayn says, waving a blurry hand at the general direction of Harry's curtains.

"Little diversion attempt," Louis explains, "we miscalculated our arrival time and obviously, we couldn't show mom these, now, could we?" He unzips his hoodie and un-drapes Harry to reveal two Demonator shirts proudly displayed across their chests. "Harry here didn't even faint, what do you know?"

"That," Harry breathes out between giggles, "was awesome."

"See, I told you," Louis says, hand on his shoulder, then turns back to Zayn and tuts his tongue at Liam's back-to-sleeping figure. "Aw, Haz, look, Liam missed us so much he had to come be in our house even when we weren't here. How sweet." Harry tosses the drape over his shoulder and makes a fond face. "It's probably a scent thing, don't you think? Don't wolf packs do that, or something?"

"Haven't got the slightest clue," Harry says, putting his arms around Louis' waist in clear attempt to begin his efforts to drag him back to their room.

"Thanks for taking care of him, Zaynie," Louis says, winking, and as Harry yanks him away down the hall, Louis calls, "we'll take custody of him again in the morning! You're a good babysitter, baby brother!"

Zayn briefly thinks he should wake Liam up and at least ask if he needs to call his parents, but another wave of sleepiness hits him and he just curls up against the propped-up pillow, slipping back off to sleep with the sounds of Liam's snores as a faint lullaby.

*

"But, I thought you were going to cut out the door hole!" Harry's indignant voice drifts down from the treehouse-in-progress just across their property line as Zayn comes outside with a pack of hamburger buns from the pantry.

"Really," Louis cries back, "you should know by now that when I say I'm going to do something, I'm not to be trusted to accomplish it! Now, what are we going to do about this?"

Zayn could help them, he supposes, turning the burgers over on the racks, he could toss them up a power drill or something like a good brother.

"Lou, how is touching me there going to help us get down out of here?"

"Touching you there _always_ helps," Louis drawls, "and besides, I'm the one trying to push _you_ out this window, aren't I?"

Nah.

Zayn tears a bite off a bun and shrugs, settling in against the deck railing and pulling out his phone to text Liam, because sometimes being the good brother's less than it's made out to be.

This'll be fun.

*

"We're going to _die_ up here," Harry wails, slumping his head on Louis' shoulder, "I'm getting claustrophobic and we're going to die and we're never going to finish high school because we'll be _dead in a treehouse_ come graduation day." Louis pats his head when he groans loudly and tuts at him.

"You're not going to die in a treehouse, don't be overdramatic," he chides.

"You're telling me not to be overdramatic," Harry argues, because how is that even fair in the slightest, "when you're the one who not five minutes ago was clutching his stomach and wailing at the smell of hamburgers and swearing to throw all of Zayn's mangas on a bonfire when we get out of here!"

"Because Zayn is a childish git and my stomach rumbling any longer might actually be the death of me," Louis says, looking stricken with worry all over again, "oh god, we _are_ going to die in here, aren't we?" He slides down the treehouse's side wall and slumps into a cross-legged ball, sighing. "It's all your fault, you know."

"My fault?" Harry splutters, coming down to sit beside him. "My fault? How is it _my_ fault that _you_ set off a model rocket that blew up our neighbor's treehouse?"

"Because you didn't tell me not to," Louis says, running a hand through Harry's curls like the action punctuates his horrid logic. "You're supposed to keep my zany schemes and loveable charm in check, you see, and I'm supposed to ruffle your curls and make sure you don't drown yourself in worry and pre-calc. That's what a Haz and Lou do for each other, right?"

"You're not helping," Harry grumbles, even if he can't stop himself from ruining his argument by stretching out to lay his head in Louis' lap.

"Of course I'm not," Louis says, brushing his bangs off his face and kneading into his temples a little, and that feels nice, "but you love me anyway." He pauses, and Harry closes his eyes to take in the feeling of Louis' fingers. "You don't have much choice in the matter, I suppose."

There's a question niggling at the back of Harry's brain, one he doesn't like to think about, but the hot late August air won't let him forget about it. "What're we going to do next year, Lou?"

"Same as we did this year," Louis says, kneading the corners of Harry's scalp in a way that sends little tingles of pleasure through Harry's limbs. "I'll still be as dashing as ever and you'll still be whipping out your balls at the most inappropriate times to show off your skillful juggling talents, and maybe one of our adventures'll land us in jail, or else a handshake from the president." Louis' other hand creeps down to his the exposed patch of stomach at the hem of his t-shirt, and Harry swats it away.

"Stop it, that tickles," he says, "and you know what I mean."

"I do," Louis says, "I just don't want to think about it right now."

Harry grabs at Louis' hand when it moves toward his belt buckle loops and tangles their fingers together instead. "How am I going to sleep at college without your stupid snoring waking me up all night?"

"I guess I'll have to call you every night, then," Louis says, and Harry can't read the way he's looking down at him, droopy bangs falling into his eyes, but it makes him lick his lips instinctively nonetheless. "I'll put you on speakerphone and you can listen to me snore all night and I can use the sound of your humidifier to tune out my roommate's drunken three-am phone sex, it'll benefit everyone, really."

"What if," Harry swallows, and Louis' face is really close to his now, isn't it, "what if we didn't, though?"

"Didn't call each other on speakerphone?" Louis' breath is a little shallow, and it's not from the grill smoke drifting in the window. "I don't think we'd hear each other very well if we rolled over, otherwise."

"What if we didn't go to college somewhere far away from each other?" Harry asks, and Louis' thumb stops tracing over the crevice between his index and middle finger. "What if we didn't even go to college at all? We're talented, you know, everyone loves it when we sing together, what if we tried to make a go of it?"

"We did try," Louis says, frowning, "and we never heard back anything, remember?"

"I'm not talking about TRL," Harry says, "and we didn't even do that, not really. I mean like, give it a proper go, you and me."

"Maybe," Louis says, but his hopeful smile says otherwise, and Harry's not sure what question he's actually answering, at the end of the day. "Maybe, Haz."

"D'you actually want this thing so you can get out of there or not?" Zayn's voice comes calling up at them, and Louis immediately breaks the moment by darting up to the window to look down to where their brother's smirking and waving a power drill up at them from the ground.

"Of course we do," Louis responds, "now toss it up here so we can come and properly murder you, Zayn Malik."

*

Zayn's pretty sure Harry told him they had plans to see White Eskimo's gig at Stan's party tonight, but from the looks of it, neither of his brothers are headed anywhere soon that isn't on top of each other in a tangle of limbs and lightsabers on the living room floor.

"Take that, you rogue Jedi, you!" Louis exclaims, skewering his red weapon into Harry's side, which elicits a shriek and a giggle in response. "That'll teach you next time you think you're going to sway to the Dark Side of the Force!"

"Ah, but young one, you think you can escape me so easily!" Harry lunges at Louis; Zayn lunges to stop the teetering of the end table lamp just in time. "Your words, they are strong, but your skills, they are weak! Your foolishness, it has sealed your fate, young Szechuan!" He dives again with a battle whoop and tackles Louis flat to the ground, rolling on top of him over the rug.

"I think you're getting your references crossed there," Zayn tells him, but his words fall on deaf ears along with some quite audible yelps and headlocks and knees hooked around elbows.

"Stop that!" Harry breathes out through his giggles, because apparently the Jedi battle has turned into a tickling match now, and oh, there goes the spanking, right on cue. "Not on the bum! Cut it out!"

"Don't y'have anything better to be doing than that?" Zayn asks, trying again. "Some of us are trying to read here, yeah."

"He's right," Louis says, sitting bolt upright and holding a finger in the air like it's the cord for the imaginary lightbulb going off above his head. "Don't we have something better to do than this, H?"

"I wasn't saying gang up on me instead, before you start with that," Zayn warns, and Louis pouts.

"Zayn's right," Harry says, clutching his stomach as he pushes Louis off top of him and gasping for air. "We ought to get going if we're going to see the guys do their set." He crooks his neck up at Zayn. "You sure you don't want to come with us?"

"Nah," Zayn says from behind his book, shaking his head, "the guys don't want your little brother tagging along, anyway." He flips a page while Louis stands up and straightens his shirt. "Have fun, though."

"Always so considerate, Zaynie," Louis says, ruffling his hair; Zayn swats his hand away without looking up. "All right, come on, let's go straighten up." He sneaks one more tap to Harry's ass, then herds him up the stairs to a chorus of _he's got a point, you know_ s and _just trying to be nice, Lou_ s.

Zayn pulls out his phone after the voices disappear and shoots a text off to Liam, _you want to hang out tonight?_

_sure dont have anything planned well unless u count AP bio but thats not friday night material isit?_

_be over around 10 then? ps just watched h &l maul each other with lightsabres, you wouldve been amused_

_id tell them 2 get a room but thats kind of missing the point of the whole thing huh_

Zayn chuckles under his breath and scrolls up the chat bubble a little, reading over random thoughts about cafeteria food and action flicks as he heads up to his own room to get changed for the night. He's got a crazy idea forming in his head, and he thinks he might be just crazy enough to go through with it. 

His stomach's bubbling over with second-thought nerves when he's standing under Liam's window an hour and a half later, but seeing Liam pull up his blinds and crack the window open, hair mussed up and a pajama sweatshirt hanging askew on his collarbone, makes the worry fly out of him. He grins up at him, stilling his pebble-gripping hand and giving him a wave.

"What're you doing?" Liam asks, voice muted but strong enough to carry down from the second floor. "Couldn't you have just knocked? How're you going to get up to my room from there?"

"Wasn't planning on it," Zayn says, "because you're getting down here with me."

"What?" It takes him a second to realize that Zayn's serious, and then his eyes go wide and his hands start flapping. "I can't—my parents don't—that'd be sneaking out," he says.

"That was the idea, yeah," Zayn nods in agreement, spinning the rock in his hand around between his thumb and index finger.

"I can't just—you can't just sneak out in the middle of the night like this!"

"Just did it on my end," Zayn shrugs.

"But that's not—I don't—what if we get caught? What if my dad finds out?"

Zayn shrugs again. "Yolo," he replies, adding, "you only live once, Li," at Liam's confused expression.

Liam seems to consider that for a moment at the windowsill, "huh, so that's what means."

"So you're coming down?"

"I'm—what—most certainly not," Liam sputters, even as he appears to be contemplating the easiest way to scale down out of the window and off the patio awning in one piece.

"You're not gonna break," Zayn says, chuckling, "I'll stand here in case you fall, if it makes you feel better."

Liam sighs and gives a final cautionary look over his shoulder, then carefully scales over the window ledge and down onto the awning, sitting and dangling his legs over the edge before sucking in a breath and hopping down to meet him. "All right," he says, dusting off his jeans, "sorry for my lack of proper attire, I didn't realize you weren't proposing a movie night."

"You look great," Zayn says, and feels his face go hot as soon as the words leave his mouth, but it's true.

"So, where are we going?" Liam asks, voice hardly above a whisper even though there's no way anyone could hear.

"To the old middle school building," Zayn announces proudly, sucking up the last of his nerves.

"The old—there's nothing there, Zayn," Liam says. "And how are we getting there, that's halfway across town and I can't risk swiping Dad's car, too."

"Nothing's there," Zayn says, "not yet, that's the point." Liam looks confused. "And s'okay, I'll drive." He grabs the keys out of his pocket and gives them a toss, grabbing at them in midair. "C'mon, let's go, I can't wait to show you."

"You'll—wait—you're not taking me out on that thing," Liam says, heels bucking into the patio concrete as Zayn tries to tug him off by the hand.

"You can finish one of those sentences once in while, y'know," Zayn teases, trying another tug, and this time Liam relents a little and follows him through the backyard and toward the opposing block.

Liam hesitates when they make it back to Zayn's motorcycle parked at the curb at the end of his block. "Y'won't die, Li," Zayn says, hopping on and motioning for Liam to follow suit.

"Promise?" Liam asks, sighing.

"Promise," Zayn says, and Liam climbs on behind him, locking his arms around Zayn's shoulders in a death grip.

"All right," Liam says, squeezing his eyes shut, "but just in case I do, make sure you find someone in my stead to kick Harry's ass at the science fair for me this year, since it's our big senior finale and all." 

Zayn revs the engine, and away they go.

Liam stops accidentally attempting to strangle him at some point past the high school, relaxing into the ride, Zayn's pretty sure, by the time they pull up to the abandoned building's parking lot. He shuts off the engine and Liam takes a moment to reacquaint his feet with the ground, then frowns, looking around. "But what did you bring me here for?"

"You'll see," Zayn says, motioning for him to come around the side of the building that buts up against a wooded area, and Liam follows, looking like he's begrudging his curiosity every step of the way.

They get to a stretched-out wall out of view of the road and Zayn sits down cross-legged in front of it, pulling half a dozen stubs of colored charcoals out of his pocket.

"What did you want to show me?" Liam asks, quiet and genuine this time. "What's here?"

"Nothing yet," Zayn smiles back at him, fingers feeling like jelly around the red crayon, "give me fifteen or twenty, though, yeah?" Liam nods, taking his word, and comes to sit beside him, leaning against the tan brick of the school wall and watching as Zayn takes the crayon and makes the first few swipes of a small figure.

Liam says nothing, eyes on his every shade and swoop, as Zayn presses the charcoals into the concrete, brick by brick, curve by curve, line by line. The world bleeds into a chorus of chirping crickets and Liam's breaths, slow and caught in his chest every now and then, as he fills in colors and swipes his thumb up to the wall every now and then to smudge shades together as best as he can. When it's finally done, he leans back on the heels of his palms, sitting what's left of the charcoals on the ground and looking to Liam for approval.

"It's fantastic," Liam says, staring at the image of a kid cupping his palm around a flame shooting out the center of it. "Have you—you've done this before, haven't you?"

"A few times," Zayn shrugs, although it's a few more than that by now, he supposes.

"You're really good at this," Liam says, "I mean it. I'm not just saying that to be nice." He swallows. "Like—really good."

"Yeah?" Zayn asks, grinding the yellow stub into the concrete below them to give his hand something to do right now that isn't reaching out for Liam's, because he really doesn't want to ruin this with a dumb move like that.

"I've meant it since the beginning," Liam says, mouth open for a second longer than it takes to finish the words, like he can't decide what to do next. "How long have you been—?" He nods his head to the wall to finish what his words don't say.

"Year or two now, I suppose," Zayn says, "ever since I got the motorcycle." It's really bad how Liam's shoulders look in that sweatshirt, how the floodlight pouring over the other side of the building reflects off of Liam's lower lip when he wets it with his tongue. It's really bad, bad enough for Zayn to turn his attention back to the yellow charcoal. "I've never brought anyone along before, though."

"Oh," Liam says, and then he's knitting his brow together in the way that says he's about to make a decision, the way Zayn's seen him do a hundred times before mixing a chemical into one of Harry's test tube sets or smacking Louis across the stomach.

"I guess I wanted you to see," he tells Liam, "'cause you're the only one who thinks this kind of stuff's cool, I mean."

"Oh," is all Liam says again, before closing the distance between the two of them and pressing his lips against Zayn's.

They both pull back for a second, and Liam's eyes are as wide as his feel, and Zayn says, "I guess I wanted to share it with you, yeah."

Liam's eyes crinkle at the corners and when he leans in again, the kiss says _I'm glad you did_.

*

When he gets home, he can hear the sound of scuffling and laughter coming from his brothers' room and he wonders if they even made it out the party at all, swiping his thumb across his still-swollen lip and shaking his head at the sound of electronic whooshes and zips and _I will avenge you this time, young Jedi, I will avenge this one for my father._

*

Harry's got himself signed up for this student teaching program, a move the school counselor's told him will look good on college applications, which means that come the first week of class, his stepbrother's in his fourth-period physics, standing up in front of the class with an off-kilter bowtie and the same dopey grin as always.

"Hey," Harry says, waving at the class, "so, looks like I get to teach you about Newton's laws today, huh?" He leans up against the desk and gives a little snort. "Which aren't about the cookies, sadly. I wish they were about the cookies. The cookies taste better." The girl in the front row tilts her head, and Zayn wants to bury his in his hands on his desk out of secondhand embarrassment. "But you can't put the cookies in your mouth without the laws, so it's a good deal in the end."

"You're like, our age," front row girl says, puzzled, "aren't you in my sister's chemistry class?"

"That I am," Harry says, swiping his finger triumphantly at her, "but not today, anyway, because today I'm your teacher." He nods toward the back of the room and holds up a thumbs up. "Assistant teacher, anyway, right, Mr. C?"

"So can you teach us how to dress as fabulous as you, then?" one of the kids on the hockey team pipes up, affecting a false lisp that makes spiny prickles of anger shoot through Zayn, and half his row suppresses a laugh.

"That's enough," their teacher says sternly.

"Sorry," the hockey kid says, and Mr. Cowell settles back down against the back table. "I should've known better," he continues, "I mean, I should've known you weren't the fashion fairy." More laughter; Zayn's fist clenches around his pencil and plants itself firmly down into the wood of the desk. "We all know it's his boyfriend who wears the suspenders in that relationship, after all."

" _That's enough_ ," Mr. Cowell repeats, "don't make me say it once again, Warner."

Warner coughs something under his breath in response, and oh, but he's going to regret that Zayn caught it.

"Shut," Zayn says, voice low and gravely and quiet, turning to face him, "the fuck up." Harry looks like he's going to melt into the floor and need to have his remnants poured into one of the beakers on the shelves behind him.

"What, you're gonna tell me you've never walked in on them making out before dinnertime, Malik?" Warner leers at him, and that's it.

He doesn't regret it for a minute, the launch out of his chair that knocks the kid straight onto the floor, even if it costs him a week's worth of detention, because this time around, he finally gets it, maybe it's not just playing tough for his brothers' sake anymore.

*

He doesn't wear his jacket to school the next day; he reasons to himself he's done hiding behind it, maybe, although his arms feel weird with cardigan sleeves hugging against them that breathe too much for his liking.

"What's with the prep school look?" Liam asks, already leaned back against the bay of lockers when Zayn shuts his, popping peanuts from a vending machine pack in his mouth. 

"Didn't feel like it today," Zayn says, and from the way Liam's studying him, he figures a nonchalant shrug won't cover up whatever he's heard.

"Not that I'm complaining, you look nice," Liam grins, "but it's just different." His eyes are on Zayn in a way that's still new, but nice. "Your jacket's your thing, you know? It's just—it's you."

"You think?" Zayn asks, grabbing for his European history textbook.

"I do," Liam says, and smiles in a way that makes Zayn's stomach do somersaults. "Come on, I've got to get to class, walk with me?"

Zayn shuts his locker and starts down the hall even though his class is in the other wing because, of course, the answer is yes.

*

He puts the jacket back on the next morning and thinks to himself, _yeah, that works._

*

Haz's been a little on edge as of late, Louis notices, and he's sure it's probably his fault, somehow, which is nothing new.

He's not exactly sure what it is he did—probably something to do with taking all the hot water in the shower three days in a row, or that little mess with winning the skydiving lessons and knocking their flight instructor out two miles in the sky, one of the two—but Harry's been fidgety and off his game when they're playing Mario Kart, like he's conceding defeat to Louis before they make it off the starting line, and even a little snippy at the dinner table, which isn't very polite when Louis is more than willing to pass the potatoes, please. Worst of all is, he won't talk to him when he tries to ease into the topic of why he's been such a pissy brat all week, which just confirms in retrospect that, yeah, it was probably the whole almost-dying-in-midair thing.

So since it's his fault, he figures he ought to do something about it to make it up to him.

Which is why he pulls some strings with Stan's brother and ends up perched over Harry's sleepy form as he rolls over in bed Saturday morning.

Harry rubs his eyes and mumbles, "what d'you want, go back to sleep, m'not taking the trash out for you," before blinking awake and letting his eyes focus on the tickets that Louis is waving in front of his face.

He sits right up in bed and screams.

Screams one long, continuous squeal at the sight of tickets for Ed Sheeran concert at the Reptile Room two weeks from tonight.

Louis reaches out to stick a hand over his mouth, because the sentiment is lovely and all, but no gesture of affection nor apology could merit such decibels before ten o'clock on a weekend.

Harry brushes his hand aside and grabs for the tickets. "How did you—how could you even—these've been sold out for weeks!" His mouth keeps flapping open and shut, like it can't figure out whether to keep babbling or not, which is cute, so Louis reaches out and fluffs his curls and tells him so.

"Ah, but it always helps to have friends in high places," Louis says, winking at him and revealing two lanyards sporting backstage passes.

He should've known _that'd_ start the screaming up again.

"So, you love me again?" Louis asks once he finally gets him hushed back down under the covers.

"Again?" Harry asks, a quick look passing over his face like he'd be confused if his brain could process other emotions than shock and elation, and the next thing Louis knows, Harry's grabbing for his shoulders and—oh.

Grabbing for his shoulders and planting a sloppy, wet kiss on him right on the mouth.

Harry pulls away like Louis' entire mind and body aren't reeling or anything and stares at the passes in a daze, little wheezy almost-screams spilling out of his mouth whenever his jaw opens, and all Louis can do is wipe away the feeling of Harry's lips on his with the back of his hand and tell him, "watch your morning breath, Hazza, you could knock a person out with that stench."

*

Later that week, Zayn sees Eleanor—Eleanor fucking Calder, the prettiest girl in all of senior class—waltz through their front door and plant a slow, lingering kiss on his brother's lips, and he thinks, _shit, you've done it this time, Lou._

*

And that's before he leaves for school without Harry two days later to make out with her in the chemistry lab before first period, even.

*

Louis bounds in the front door around a quarter to five, tossing his keys on the door hook and taking the foyer steps in one hop to make it to Harry in as few steps as possible. "Guess who might've got us a gig singing at Stan's brother's college party three weeks from now? I'll give you three guesses, and any that are not the most handsome person currently in this room right now are invalid." He throws an arm around Harry's shoulder and strangely notices that he seems to stiffen at the contact, so he moves his hand to rub at the muscles there, but Harry lifts his arm up and away from his and scoots over on the couch. "What's wrong, H? You still in your funk?"

"Where were you?"

"At drama club," Louis frowns, "it's Thursday afternoon, where else would I be?"

"Not now," Harry says, leaving his book aside on his lap, "I mean, where the hell were you this morning?"

"Oh," Louis smirks, "well, you see, El called while you were in the shower and wanted to make out before school, and you were using up all the hot water on those luscious curls of yours, and, you know, El, so I figured—"

"So you're saying," Harry cuts him off, voice low and measured, "that I was twenty minutes late this morning, and got an automatic F on my chemistry exam, just so you could make out with a girl before class."

Well, when he puts it that way, he's got a point, Louis thinks, sucking in a breath.

"Shit, Haz," he says, putting an arm around him again, and Harry tenses but doesn't move away, this time. "I mean, I didn't reckon it'd be a big deal, Zayn's bike was still out in the driveway and all—"

"Yeah, well, you didn't reckon that Zayn's class was going on that field trip to the art institute that he's only been talking about all week long, did you," Harry tells him, voice sharp in a way that Harry's voice never is. He turns his head back down to his book, thumb flicking across the ends of the pages, jittery and visibly agitated, and even though he's mad at _him_ , over something he did, Louis' instincts just want to be the one to make it all better.

"Look," Louis says, pulling himself closer to Harry on the couch and snuggling his chin into Harry's shoulder, "how's about I make it up to you with a movie? Anything you want, I'll even buy the popcorn, and we can talk about this gig of Stan's, okay?"

"Awesome," Harry answers, "he offers to pay for a date for things I get free at work anyway, that's just splendid. Generous, really." He doesn't pull away, but he doesn't fold into Louis' embrace like usual, which makes Louis want to pull him closer, pull him into him until he can pull the affection out of him and balance it back out between them. "Besides," Harry's words go quiet, "I don't think I want to do the gig, anyway."

"Why not?" Louis asks, almost more to confirm that that's what he just heard out of Harry's mouth, because it's a _college party_. "This could be good for us, you were just the one saying that you wanted us to try to give it a go with the music thing, and so I've gone and done just that—"

"Yeah," Harry says, running a hand through his hair and sighing, closing his book, "I don't know if that was such a good idea, Lou." He stands so abruptly that Louis loses his balance on the couch a little and has to steady himself with an arm on a pillow. "I'll be upstairs, I've got to get that Stanford application out before the end of the week or I'll miss the deadline." He moves to back around the couch toward the stairs, but Louis jumps up and cuts off his path.

"Listen, what's wrong with you?" Louis asks, his own voice a little angrier than he expected. "You've been weird all week, weirder than usual, which I didn't think was possible, and I admit, I usually deserve it, but I haven't got a flipping clue what I did this time around, care to enlighten me?"

Harry won't meet his eye; he looks down at the floor and says, "I don't really want to talk about it."

"Oh," Louis spits, "so you're just freezing me out, delightful. Why don't you just _not talk about it_ all the way until you get on that plane to Stanford, then, all right."

Harry turns his head up, eyes a book that Louis should be able to read, should have the verse memorized to by now, but he can't decipher any of it for the life of him. "Don't make me think that's a good idea," he says quietly, turning toward the stairs, and Louis' lungs tighten up when all the air follows him out.

*

Harry doesn't say anything at dinner that night except to ask Zayn to pass the butter, and if that's the game he's going to play, well, then, Louis makes sure to have his headphones in, rolled over in bed facing the wall, when Harry gets back from his shower later that evening.

*

"All right, Peazer, tell me," Niall's saying around a mouthful of meatball sub as Louis waltzes into the Premiere on Friday evening, because he's most certainly not going to let Harry's little funk spoil his enjoyment of the new _Men in Black_ , is he, "precisely what the hell the difference between a hoagie and a grinder is." Danielle raises an eyebrow at him and Louis takes the distraction as an opportunity to grab himself a box of Milk Duds off the stack. "I have tried to research the matter, trust me, I have gathered my statistics very carefully here, and I still don't know how I'm supposed to think one is better than the other when they're both a bunch of meat on a submarine bun."

Harry's sweeping up a popcorn spill at the entrance to Theater Two, and Louis surges with excitement for a moment at the thought of lifting his messenger bag to show the Nerf gun he's managed to sneak in in honor of the opening night showing, before he remembers, and it's like a foam dart right to the gut.

Harry looks up at him for a minute as he passes into the theater, and Louis gets his hopes up that maybe he's going to say something after all, but he just lets Louis pass and ducks back under his curls to concentrate on the crushed popcorn.

*

By Saturday, he's a right disaster.

Harry will hardly say three words to him, and he doesn't get it, and he doesn't like it, doesn't like having to dance around the space that's _theirs_ like he's a stranger in his own room and doesn't like being so completely out of control of the situation and doesn't like that his shirts haven't been smelling more like Harry's cologne than his own the past few days and it's all childish of him and he knows it is, but he doesn't _like_ any of this and all he wants is to snap his fingers or say a spell or pat Haz on the ass to make it all stop.

He's too tired to even snap his fingers, though, and when he'd tried the latter this morning before Harry left for work, all it'd earned him was a glare and a quiet "I'm going to be late, can you move out of the doorway, please."

So instead of trying, he balls the comforter up around him tighter and turns up the volume on his iPod and tells himself he's going to jam out to "It Wasn't Me" and not sit all afternoon in his bed and let the fact Harry's pissed at him and there's nothing he can do about it throw him into even more of a stew.

It won't work, he knows, but if there's one thing he is, it's stubborn enough to not let a silly thing like that stop him.

Zayn pops his head into the doorway before he can close his eyes and turn the volume up too loud to notice. "You know where my copy of Jumper is? Li's coming over and I promised him we'd watch, he hasn't seen it," he says, then stops his elbow halfway to the doorknob. "Wow, you look like shit."

"Why thank you, you're looking lovely yourself," Louis says, feigning more annoyance than he actually feels, "always know how to cheer your brother up, don't you, Z."

Zayn sighs and steps inside, moving tentatively toward him. "What's wrong?" He shoves his hands in his pockets, looking around the room like he feels like he shouldn't be in it, which is just ludicrous, so Louis slips his headphones off and motions for him to come sit beside him on the edge of the bed loft. "Y'haven't been yourself all week," Zayn says, climbing up the ladder rungs to sit beside him, "and I'm guessing it's got something to do with the way you and Harry keep shoving casserole spoons at each other every night at dinner, yeah?"

Louis sighs and slumps against Zayn's shoulder. "Always were brilliant at deduction, weren't you, Zaynie," he says, and Zayn slumps back against the edge of the bed with him, folding his knees up toward him. "Harry's being a twit and won't talk to me and I don't know why," he snorts, "doesn't he know that I'm supposed to be the drama queen in this household?"

Zayn scrunches up his face in thoughts Louis can't read. "Maybe," he says, "it's because he doesn't know what to say." Louis doesn't know what on earth that's supposed to mean; he never has been good at decoding his brother when he decides to get all cryptic on him like that.

"You're a bundle of help," he says, giving Zayn's shoulder a little shove.

"I'm just saying," Zayn says, fiddling with his bracelets, "y'don't know what's going on in his head? Maybe he just needs a little bit of time, open up to you about it in his own time."

Louis supposes he has a point, although it doesn't make him any less impatient to speed up Harry's clock. "Where'd you get that wisdom into your brain, baby brother? Through osmosis from Liam's lips? Wait, don't tell me, I haven't eaten yet today and any details will positively send my nausea over the edge." He clutches his stomach overdramatically, and Zayn waves a hand at him. 

"I don't think that's possible," Zayn says, more mumbles, and rolls his eyes, but the color of his cheeks tells Louis the real story.

"You do know I'm happy for you, right?" Louis asks.

"Yeah?"

Louis nods. "He's a quality fellow, that Liam Payne. Good head on his shoulders. And sexy abs, to boot." Zayn looks positively horrified, which makes Louis genuinely laugh for the first time in days. "Don't worry, I've got no desire to move in on your territory there. But he's a good kid, and he's good for you."

"You think so?" The way that Zayn's cheeks stretch when he asks it, stretch into the kind of smile he hasn't actually seen out of him since he was six, answers that for him, Louis thinks.

"You're good for each other," Louis says, nodding, "and if you ever stop being it, I'll personally beat the shit out of him on your behalf."

"Please don't," Zayn says.

"I'm just saying," Louis says, "if he tries to feel you up underneath your shirt and you're not ready for a little second base action on your girlish figure—"

"Stop."

"—I know where he lives, and I know the names of his pet turtles, and I am not above taking them hostage for a few days if that scoundrel should attempt to make a mess upon your innocence." Zayn looks mortified enough for one day, so he gives his hair a ruffle and grins.

"What would I do without you to take care of me," Zayn scoffs as the sound of the downstairs doorbell echoes up at them, but Louis' pretty sure he's got that the wrong way around, in the end.

*

He thinks he's going to feel a little better after that, after what Zayn had said; he even hops down off his loft for the first time all day, makes it all the way to the couch, but then he gets the awful idea to distract himself with a round of Mario Kart action and he's only halfway around the first lap before he wants to curl back up in bed and not come back out again.

The bed's a long way, so he settles for the couch, balling his knees up and tucking the controller into the crevice between his belly and the pillow, beeps and bells and whistles from behind him ignored, which is how Harry finds him an hour later.

He doesn't roll over in reaction; he can see Harry toss his work vest on the bed from here, anyway, can feel the weight of him sinking into the cushions as he sits down.

"I'm not," Harry's voice starts at him, then stops. "I'm not mad at you, Lou."

"Funny way of showing it," Louis says, not bothering to cock up his head at him.

"Well, I am, sort of," Harry continues, "that was a dick move last week, you know," and Louis knows it was. He knows _why_ it was a dick move, too, although he'd prefer to keep up the illusion he doesn't. "But I'm not—it's not the thing, not really."

"I suppose you're going to tell me what the thing is," Louis says listlessly, like the butterflies inside of him aren't pounding at his ribcage.

Louis can hear Harry exhale, feel him scoot closer on the couch. "It's just what you said, about college and stuff," he says, "maybe we should try to, you know, be a little less close, since we're going to have to get used to that sort of thing."

"Is that really what you want, Haz?" Louis rolls over a little, so he can at least sort of see Harry's reaction when he says it.

"No," Harry says, picking up the spare controller and thumbing at the flipswitch. "But we probably should. I mean." He's flicking the switch so rapidly that Louis can tell it's out of worry, so he gives in and sits up, putting a hand over Harry's to still him, because he never can muster self-control as far as Harry's concerned. "We're awfully—we're too dependent on each other, you know? We do everything together. Even when we probably shouldn't." He swallows. "Even when people notice. And maybe we need to grow out of that."

Louis swallows, too, because he's never been much for growing up. "Do you honestly believe the words you're saying right now?"

"Do you believe them?" Harry asks, like it's a challenge, and Louis' never been one to resist a good challenge, so he closes the gap between them and this time, the kiss is sloppy and wet and wonderful all on his own terms.

"Not for a single moment," Louis tells him when he pulls back, and Harry's got this terrified, delirious little beam on his face from across the controllers on their laps, and he's probably got the same one on his face too, "so if you're going to be a naughty boy and lie to me, at least make it about how you're going to stand a chance beating my high score this time."

(After the bells and beeps and whistles get abandoned for a second time, the curve of Harry's neck to blame this time around, he tells him, "just to clear the air, I was making out with El to make you jealous enough to do that with your hips, and I have wanted to lick your collarbone for years now, and it was, in fact, the orange dress that I credit to getting my mojo for you going," and Harry knows it's all bullshit as much as he does, so when his smile looks a little less terrified when he quips back, "she's too pretty for you, anyway, Lou," Louis shoots right back, "that's why I picked you, because who else could love a face like that but me?")

*

"So here's the plan," Niall tells them all on the rooftop of the Premiere, gulping at his Solo cup, "we all go to Vegas for the holiday, Styles, Peazer, Tommo, even little bro Tommo, if you want to tag along," he says, nodding at Zayn, who chuckles and leans back into Liam's arm. "And instead of turkey and family caroling, we get drunk, we find ourselves some pretty ladies that don't cost too much, and we hit the jackpot on the slot machines." Danielle looks ready to protest the holes in this logic, but before she can speak, Niall adds, "well, there'll still be turkey. I hear the buffets in those Vegas hotels are killer."

Harry plucks the cup out of his hands and gives it a sniff. "I'm thinking this punch is a bit too strong for you there, Nialler." He tosses the cup into the trash can at the table beside them, to much protesting on Niall's part, and turns to Louis. "C'mon, it's almost time for our big gig, Lou," he says, nodding at the makeshift stage on the other end of the rooftop. He squeezes Louis' hand, and Zayn watches a wordless exchange of encouragement pass between them, reaching for Liam's himself.

"Wish us luck," Louis winks, and when we're famous, I'll be sure to send you all my love and autographs. As long as you don't sell them on Ebay for profit, because I'm not one for whoring myself out for other's benefit."

"Don't lie, you're forever whoring yourself out," Liam teases, calling after Louis, and Louis gives him the finger over his shoulder with the hand that's not dragging Harry along with him as he goes.

Liam turns to Zayn, smiling. "Ready to watch them?"

"I dunno," Zayn teases, poking at the nose of the giant Rudolph on Liam's sweater, "be bad for my image to be seen with someone looking like such a dork, you think?"

"Oh, come on," Liam grins, "I think I'm perfectly attired for a tacky sweater Christmas party. You're the one who should be worried about standing out like a sore thumb next to me." Liam leans in to give him a quick peck on the cheek, and Zayn ignores Niall's catcall and Danielle's awwwing to pull him in for a real try on the lips, despite the nerves that bubble up in his throat, because anyone who's got a problem with it has to answer to him, after all. 

"Gag me," Niall says, and Liam waves him off. "I don't know about you kids, but I'm getting a spot up close to see your dork and dork-in-law sing, so anyone who wants to follow me, the party's moving this way." Zayn quirks his eyebrows up at Liam, and Liam nods, taking his hand to follow their makeshift group over toward the stage.

"Merry Christmas," Liam says to him, squeezing his hand as Harry and Louis take their places in front of the lone spotlight at the back of the crowd, and Zayn tells him the same as he poises his cell phone videocamera up toward his brothers on the stage, the youtube upload window already open and waiting in his browser.

(When Harry gets an email a few weeks after the holidays that makes him squeal so loud he's got no choice to kiss Louis all over again, Louis will tell him it's just luck falling into his charmed lap yet again, and Zayn will think, he's happy for them, he is.)


End file.
